


Spring Swaps Snow for Leaves

by Endangered_Slug



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AND I GET IT, F/M, Hope is a Thing With Feathers remix, Soulmates, That might be a deal breaker for you, and Gold is 34, because ew, but this is a very mild fic, in which Belle is 17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-15 07:25:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9224867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endangered_Slug/pseuds/Endangered_Slug
Summary: Hope is a Thing with Feathers remix. Gold packs it up and heads to Australia where he finds 17 year-old Belle waiting for him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> thestraggletag asked: If you're accepting remix prompt. Hope is a thing with feathers remix: He meets her while it's still kinda taboo for them to be together (she's young). What happens?
> 
> and
> 
> little-inkstone said: If I haven’t missed the promptathon can I ask for short remix of a Thing With Feathers? Maybe instead of Belle seeing Gold’s roses he sees her feathers first?

Gold couldn’t say what possessed him to leave Scotland and fly to the other side of the world, but once he stepped off the runway and into the Melbourne airport itself, he knew in his heart that he’d made the right decision.

The seasons were turned upside down of course, but it was a mild spring day and the taxi ride to his rented flat was an eye opening experience. He’d studied up on Australia, learning its history and culture, but knowledge was one thing and experience was another. He booked his ticket without even considering the impact it would have on his life. It was a one-way ticket, the urge to go pulling at him until his stomach was a constant ache and his heart felt tied up in a knot it would take Alexander the Great himself to untie with a rusty, dull sword.

He could always go back to Glasgow and his dingy little flat, but there was nothing for him there. He spent years searching and waiting and despairing and, now that he’d given up finding her in Scotland, his heart told him to go and so he went. Gladly. Hopefully.

He spent a week figuring out the neighborhood around his new apartment, venturing out amid the new sights and smells and accents, wondering if now, at last, he might catch of glimpse of her. His instincts led him to libraries, staying for hours among the stacks, hovering like a buzzard among the students who came to study for their upcoming exams. It was a bit creepy, maybe, but he had to know. It felt right, being here in this new city in a new land and that hope he’d tried to bury back home welled up inside him until he wanted to sing.

He had been wandering around the city for three weeks — every day that wishful anticipation that this would be the day he found her — when he decided to try the first library again, which was just seven blocks from his new place. The afternoon had been the warmest he’d experienced so far and his new neighbors, after eying his thick suits, had been warning him that it would only get worse and that he would need to start loosening his ties at least.

Gold didn’t like to do that. His roses were everywhere and the people back home had reacted poorly whenever they saw them. So far he hadn’t seen anyone with nearly as many Marks as he bore and it was too delicate a subject to bring up in casual conversation. One never asked about someone’s Marks back home and he didn’t want to step into the same forbidden territory here either.

His skin prickled when he walked up the steps to the library and, heart pounding wildly in anticipation, his eyes darted every which way, flitting from one face to another until he saw her three steps up and five long strides away.

She was staring back at him with wide, sky blue eyes underneath a mass of chestnut curls that shone in the sunlight, giving her an ethereal appearance that defied his imagination. Her lips, pink and perfect, opened, but not a sound came out and there was another tug inside him as he felt the dire urge to hear her voice. He knew it would be just as lovely as she was. She was just a tiny thing, barely over five feet and for that he felt an overwhelming relief. It was as if they were made just for each other and he felt the burden of years lift perceptively as he helplessly blinked at her.

She was… she was _perfect_.

His fists, clenched until his fingernails had bitten into his palms, uncurled as a feeling of rightness settled over him and he put one shaking palm against his heart as if to keep that fluttering, beating thing inside his chest while it wanted nothing more than to fly to her. She was beautiful. He hadn’t expected that. It didn’t even occur to him to think about beauty. How could he when he was short and scrawny and already so old? She was getting no prize and he felt the imbalance even more now that they were face to face.

He knew she’d be young. He’d calculated the years and days and hours until he knew almost to the minute when she was born, but he never fully realized exactly what that meant until he was standing before her in awe.

She was seventeen and he was… _technically_ old enough to be her father at exactly twice her age. But he had already waited so long. Maybe she would understand. Maybe they could learn about each other and he could, maybe, spend some time with her a bit while she finished growing up. Surely she would want to finish school. Maybe earn an advanced degree. He had the money for it, he could give her anything she ever desired and he would wait patiently until she felt ready to embark on the next step if she wanted to. Now that they’d found each other, the sense of urgency was gone and he could breathe easy for the first time in seventeen years.

He didn’t know how long they stood on the steps of the library staring at each other. It felt like time had completely stopped to him, but that was almost as impossible as getting Marked at seventeen and around him, time sped up again until he suddenly found himself meeting her at the third step between them, hands outstretched to grasp hers.

The soft touch of her skin was like a lightning bolt through his veins and he gasped even as he clutched at her hands, gazing unbelievingly into her eyes. She stared back at him, breathless and wondering and so unfairly beautiful that it almost hurt to look at her.

“I was beginning to think you didn’t exist,” she said, her voice deeper than he expected in an accent that felt just as right as she did.   
  


“I’d given up hope years ago,” he replied, watching her eyes widen at his accent and how quickly she put the pieces together.

“You’re from… Scotland?” she asked, tentatively, the corners of her lips curling up in a smile that made his insides feel like butterflies had taken up residence.

Her eyes flit over him, searching his face and wandering down to their entwined fingers. He was, as usual, buttoned up from top to bottom, no sign of a Mark to be seen. He, however, could see hers peeking out from her sleeves as they draped delicately all along her forearms. He had always wondered what her Mark might look like. Had doodled endless images on countless scratchpads, but he had never come close to the graceful feathers that Marked her skin. Golden and exquisite, they curled and fanned over her soft skin as they disappeared underneath her sleeves and he knew that they covered her from neck to belly and back as did his.

So beautiful. Just like her.

“Aye,” he murmured a bit too late, dragging his eyes away from her arms back up to her face. He wanted to kiss her. Needed to hold her. Felt ready to burst for the wanting of her, but she was too young. Too beautiful. Too everything. “A bit far.”

He took in a deep, shuddering breath and he glanced over his shoulder at the building behind them. “Do you still have to study,” he managed to croak out.

She shook her head at him, slowly. “No,” she told him after a moment. “I think you should come home with me and meet my folks. I’ve been telling them that you were close for a month now. They’re so anxious to meet you.”

The gut-wrenching panic came back in force. They would take one look at him and send him packing. He was thirty-four now. Thirty-four to her seventeen and everything was all wrong. “Now? A-are you sure?”

“Of course!” she said, smiling up at him. She gazed at him fondly, then, as if it was the most natural thing in all the world, tucked a stray piece of his hair back behind his ear before sliding her palm down to cup his cheek. “I’ve been waiting for you all my life. I don’t want to wait any longer.”

The invasion of butterflies went spiraling out of control and he practically beamed down at her in elation, feeling ready to wrestle a bear if she asked him to.

She took his hand in hers and led him down the steps, turning right at the sidewalk.  

“Oh! My name is Belle French,” she told him suddenly, stopping short and turning towards him when she realized that they still didn’t know each other’s names.

Belle French! The most wonderful two words in the universe!

He didn’t quite hesitate to respond, but his name had always made people question his sanity. “My name is, uh, Marcus Gold,” he told her, shyly glancing down at the feathers on her arm. “My aunts called me Mark. Everyone else just calls me Gold.”

Belle’s bubbling laughter was infectious and they giggled together all the way to her house.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thestraggletagasked: Hope!Remix prompt: Gold meets Belle's parents. It's as unpleasant as one would expect. He tries to subtly imply he will be respectful of Belle's wishes and take things slow but Moe's not buying it.
> 
> and
> 
> Anonymous said: Hope!Remix: How did Belle’s parents react to her match?

“No! Absolutely not!”

Belle’s father was apoplectic with indignation, his face nearly purple and and bulging vein throbbing dangerously in his temple as he shouted down at them.

Gold stood in the foyer, waiting for his dismissal. He hadn’t even made it three steps inside before her father had begun sputtering, demanding an explanation. Belle barely got a word out before her father, taking one look at their clasped hands and her heightened expression, immediately threw a wobbly.

“If you would just listen,” Belle tried to interject before she was overridden by her father.

Mr. French, or Moe, or probably “sir”, was a giant tower of a man with large, intimidating hands which were currently clenched into large, intimidating fists and a great, booming voice that could probably be heard all the way in Glasgow.

Gold wondered how on earth anyone could rage like that without either going hoarse or having a heart attack. It was a spectacular display of endurance and Gold would have been more amused if he wasn’t at the receiving end of it. He stood before Belle’s father and took it all, repeating to himself that it was worth every humiliation if it mean that he and Belle could be together in the end.

Belle turned out to be incredibly fierce for all her small stature and, with her blue eyes blazing and her chin jutting out in defiance, withstood it all with him, her hand clenching his so tightly that his bones were rubbing together, but he didn’t shake it loose. If Belle needed him to be strong he would be.

“How many Marks do you have, Papa,” she asked him quietly. Quiet but firm.

Papa French, taken aback by her question, sputtered to a stop. “You know it’s three, Belle,” he replied softly, his wet eyes blinking back tears as he pleaded with her.

Belle’s mother, who had been standing in the doorway to the kitchen with her hands crossed over her chest while she waited things out finally dropped her arms and strode over to them, rubbing at her husband’s back in soothing circles.

Moe deflated. That was the only word for it. One moment he was towering over them, the next his shoulders sank in defeat and he was just a man again. One not much older than Gold himself.

“Let her speak,” she whispered now that the man had run out of steam.

Belle’s grip loosened a bit on his hand now that it looked like her father was done being unreasonable. She glanced up at him with a quick smile before turning back to Moe. “You have three Marks, Papa. Same as Mum. How many do I have?”

Moe sniffled before he answered sullenly. “Seventeen.”

“You haven’t seen them all, Papa. They’re in places you don’t want to see now, but believe me when I say they’re all over. I’ve waited so long. Mark’s waited so long, why wouldn’t you want us to be happy.”

Collette’s eyes flickered to Gold at the mention of his name, amusement sparkling in their depths. “We do want you to be happy, darling. It’s just that… well someone has to say it, but you’re just so young.”

“And you and Papa were _five_ when you met.  By comparison I’m practically ancient.”

Moe snorted and turned away. He blew out a long breath before turning back to them, his face softened a bit. “But you have to understand that were the same age, love. It’s different than—” his eyes glanced at Gold, darkening perceptively.

“I was seventeen when the Mark first appeared,” Gold said, speaking for the first time to answer the unspoken question.

Moe and Collette startled, glancing at each other quickly before she looked away, biting her lip as she tried to suppress a smile.

Curious, Gold waited a beat before continuing. “I was seventeen and in my first year of university. I thought…well, I thought I wasn’t ever going to get a Soulmark. It had been so long that I’d given up hope. And then my rose appeared. Out of nowhere. I’d gone to bed without a Mark and then woken up hours later with a rose. I won’t lie I was scared. I realized right away that it meant my Mate hadn’t been born until then. That I was already so much older and that it would be a bit—”

“Gross,” Moe interrupted, unable to contain himself.

Belle chided him with a stern, “Papa, don’t.” She wrapped her arm around Gold’s and tugged him close as if to protect him.

Gold smiled down at the top of her head, already half in love with her, then looked back up at her parents. “You can use the word gross if you like. I prefer…” He thought for a moment before finishing, “ _unusual_.”

“You can’t keep us apart,” Belle warned them. “I refuse to wait any longer. It’s been so long already,” she pleaded.

Moe only glared at him some more, but Collette merely nodded her head. “It’s all so sudden, darling. We weren’t expecting—” she broke off and changed tack, her face suddenly anxious. “But you know we’re happy you two finally found each other? And it explains so much…” she said, her voice trailing off as she looked down at her hands. “Does this mean you’re staying, Belle?” she asked after a moment, her voice trembling.

Belle nodded her head as she thought it over. “For now. I don’t know what our plans will be, but for now I’m not leaving. There’s no need to any more.”

Moe broke down then. Big, blubbering tears streamed down his face as he cried in relief. Both Collette and Belle ran to him, wrapping their arms around him in a group hug.

Gold watched awkwardly, wondering if he should step out and let them have their moment in private, but before he could discretely walk into the hallway, Belle pulled away and took him by the hand. She led him into a small room — her room and Gold felt his heart begin to squeeze at the thought of being in such a confined space surrounded with pieces of her life. He felt ready to faint, but he pressed on, not wanting to miss _anything_.

He understood everything the moment he walked through her bedroom door. Pictures of Scotland lined the walls from top to bottom. Everything from Loch Ness to Edinburgh to St Andrews to the Orkneys and the Isle of Skye to the Highlands to Harry freaking Potter. It was a veritable travel guide. The walls were Scotland, but the floor was books. Books shoved in shelves and stacked up in piles. Belle was a reader and, judging by a quick perusal of titles, she read everything she could get her hands on.

“Had a bit of an urge to travel did you?” he asked after he took it all in, smiling at her crookedly.

“I had this… feeling. Ever since I could remember, I just felt that I had to go to Scotland,” she murmured, staring up at him, seemingly breathless before she replied, “I was to leave next week.”

“N-next week,” he rasped, feeling as if someone had kicked him in the chest. He’d very nearly missed her entirely. He’d have spent another seventeen years looking all over Australia for her to no end. And then what? He’d probably kill himself in grief. Gold felt his knees buckle and he sat heavily on her bed, which squeaked loudly.

Moe’s face appeared in the doorway, glaring until he realized nothing untoward was going on before her went back to lurking in the hallway.

Belle shook her head in exasperation and shut the door with a hissed, “Stop it, Papa.” She came and sat down next to him. “Sorry. He really wasn’t prepared for this.”

“I’ll admit I’m a bit overwhelmed, too.” Gold chuckled a bit before he tentatively reached for her hand. She allowed him to take it, but he didn’t do anything but stare at her fingers and marvel at how delicate they were and how right it felt to have her hand in his. He was barely able to hold in his own tears and he gave a breathy sigh as he tried to contain them.

“May I ask where you’re from?” Belle asked kindly, instinctively trying to distract him.

Gold had never felt such concern from anyone before and that made him even more emotional, but he tamped it down for now, concentrating on her question.

He looked up and glanced around before he found it. “There,” he said, pointing towards a large poster of a gothic cathedral in the corner on the opposite wall. “Glasgow.”

Her eyebrows shot up and she smirked at him, her lips twisting in a way that drew his eyes and he wondered what they tasted like.

“So does that mean you don’t have a kilt?” she teased.

He thought of his knobby knees and skinny legs and internally winced. “I can get one?” he offered.

She laughed, shaking her head at him helplessly. “Not necessary.” Her laughter died out and they sat there quietly until she asked the real question. “Does the, uh, age difference bother _you_?”

Her voice squeaked when she was nervous Gold realized and he let go of her hand to wrap his arm around her, holding her close. She smelled faintly of roses. Roses and sunshine and something absolutely enticing that must have just been her. He breathed her in, filling his lungs with her scent, completely at peace for the first time he could remember. She gave a deep sigh herself and leaned her head against him. Gold closed his eyes at the contact, the first real touch he’d had in well over a decade. It had been worth everything for this moment. All the anguish, all the heartache and second guessing and eternal waiting had led to Belle and he would do it all over again.

“It did at first,” he said, truthfully, his voice soft and low. “At first I thought you were always just around the corner and I expected to find you in every pram I saw. I was… disappointed that I would be so much older than you. But when years went by and there was _still_ no you, I didn’t know what to do. I was getting a bit desperate.”

She looked up at him, her cheek adorably smooshed against his shoulder. “And now?”

He gave her a small smile. “Now now that I found you that desperate panic has just flown away, you know?” He tapped the center of his chest with the tips of his fingers.

She nodded her head, still gazing up at him as if he was a walking, talking miracle and Gold felt ready to take on a hundred Moes and a hundred Collettes just to have her keep looking at him like that. Like he was important and worthwhile..

“I’ll wait forever until you’re ready to make a commitment. What’s another few years? If you w-want to make a commitment,” he stuttered, aware of how presumptuous he sounded. “I would never force you. I’m twice your age, Belle and I know I’m not what you were expecting. You were expecting someone younger at least.”

She shook against him as she giggled. “Age is not a problem, trust me on that, Mark,” she told him, hiding her head against his chest with a small blush.

“But, I think we should wait until you’re done with school, yeah?”

She nodded her head once more, her face still pressed against him in the most delicious manner. “Probably. Though…” she paused for a moment then pulled away to look at him, her eyes searching his face. “I mean, that’s negotiable, right? Down the line I mean. We don’t have to wait the entire four years if we don’t want to. Right?”

“Has anyone ever told you no before?” he asked, wonderingly.

She blinked at him and gave a huff of a laugh. “All the time. Why?”

He shook his head with a mysterious smile and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Well, I think that needs to stop, don’t you?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thestraggletag asked: Hope!Remix prompt: Belle and Gold are on a very platonic date (eating ice-cream or something). But it's Australia so it's fucking hot. Gold is forced to wear either a t-shirt or a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, whatever. Belle's feathers are also on display. The reactions they get vary from positive to negative.
> 
> and
> 
> betweenpaperpages said: Hope!Remix prompt: Belle and Gold go out for a date to get to know one another better. 
> 
> and 
> 
> thestraggletag said: Hope!Remix prompt: They meet her friends. Some think he’s a creeper others think it’s super romantic.

Belle was staring at him. It should have been disconcerting, but Gold had been doing nothing but staring back at her, memorizing every minute feature, that his ice cream cone had melted into a puddle and dripped down his hand before he even noticed.

Gold couldn’t remember the last time he looked into someone’s eyes for any length of time — another reminder of how isolated he’d become of the years. He’s spent so much of his life avoiding people’s notice that he’d walled himself away from society to the point of misanthropic caricature and now here he was sitting in a cafe, gazing into Belle’s eyes as if they were the only thing keeping him from floating away into the night.

Perhaps they were.

They’d gone to get an ice cream, which was the world’s most innocent pastime according to Belle’s parents, who had accompanied them much to Belle’s annoyance. But, Moe insisted and Gold begrudgingly agreed if that’s what it took to spend any time with Belle. She finally acquiesced to their chaperonage, but only on the condition that they sit at different table. On the other side of the room.

Moe grumbled and Colette fussed, but they finally reached an unsatisfying compromise and now, here they all were, packed into the first gelato parlor they came across with Belle’s parents squished into a table in the back while they snagged themselves a table on the sidewalk outside. It would have been awkward if he hadn’t been so crazy happy.

Belle was a chatterbox when she was worked up — the complete opposite of Gold in every way and he watched in fascination as she told the girl at the counter that she had just found her Soulmark not an hour before. Practically shouted it as if she could barely contain herself. Perhaps she couldn’t, she was nearly vibrating from excitement while Gold felt an inner peace that threatened to overwhelm him.

Her confession had set off a chain reaction throughout the establishment that astonished him. People cheered. Actually cheered for them and Belle’s exuberance infected him as he watched perfect strangers celebrate their happiness. Shouts of congratulations rang out while Belle bounced on the balls of her feet, no doubt unable to comprehend how exposed he felt now that everyone was staring at them.

That celebration lasted for an entire minute before the person scooping the ice cream noticed him. Her face screwed up first in confusion, then in disgust, her eyes flitting from  Belle to Gold and back. He could tell she was trying to figure out exactly who he was, but Belle’s death grip on his hand was a dead giveaway that their Happy Ending was both complicated and mildly disturbing.

He tried to smile at the woman, but that only made things worse. The girl served them silently, glaring as she handed him a cone of fior di latte. He mumbled a thank you, waiting for Belle and her parents to be served before discreetly paying for everything in a hurry.

It was hotter than he was used to, and, given the rather cold nature of Scotland in autumn, he wasn’t prepared for Australia in the spring. His skin was the color of paste, the result of a lifetime spent in a rainy climate. His cone long gone, he’d rolled up his sleeves until the red tips of his roses appeared. Conditioned to hide them from sight and already feeling too naked, he stopped just before they were fully revealed, but Belle, only knowing love and support all her life, grasped at his wrist and pulled it closer.

She glanced up at him for a moment, silently asking permission before she pushed the sleeve up past his elbow, her eyes wide and her mouth slack with wonder as she traced the tip of her finger along the edge of a petal, his Mark blossoming at her touch.

Gold sucked in a shuddering breath, stunned at the exquisite feeling of Belle touching his Mark. Never in a million years did he expect that rush of adrenaline and he was simultaneously aroused and eager to see if he had the same effect on her.

His eyes dropped to her shoulder where he could see her feathers curled up, dazzling in the golden light of the setting sun and the urge to run his tongue along her skin began to prickle at his senses.

“They’re so beautiful,” she murmured, finally looking back at him, her blue eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “I had no idea what they might be. I had no idea what to look for, but I didn’t even consider roses.”

He nodded, unable to speak one word that wouldn’t come out as a hoarse croak. Belle’s feathers were as much of a surprise to him as his roses were to her. There were no guidelines, no handy pamphlet on what to expect when you were expecting a Soulmark. He was only told that he would know her when he saw her. Immediately. Like a lightning bolt.

“U-hm,” he began, unsteadily, still reeling from the shock of her touch. “I hope you’re not too, uh, disappointed?”

Another glance up at his, her head tilted questioningly.

“About… me.” he finished with a wince. Why was he harping on this? Did he want to hear her reject him? What was he trying to prove?

“No,” she told him, shaking her head. “Only in that there were so many wasted years. I got so jealous of people who have always known their Soulmark. It didn’t seem fair.”

He could appreciate that. Seventeen years Markless then another seventeen spent waiting, he had been alone for so long that he still hadn’t fully processed that his long vigil was over. They’d done it. They’d found one another despite age and distance. It hadn’t even been two hours and already he felt like he’d come home. That this moment was meant to happen exactly the way it did.

“Given the age gap, it’s probably better that we had to wait so long,” he said with some difficulty. Looking at her helped. He felt stronger, bigger, bolder, better when he looked at her. As if he was important. Like he could do anything. It struck him then that Belle was probably feeling the same way and he blinked back the tears that threatened to fall.

Even if they did fall, Belle would understand.

She looked away for a moment. “I suppose. Any earlier and it would have been… awkward.”

She stroked a rose again, seemingly unable to keep her hands off him and Gold was very well on his way to being petted into a blissful coma.

“Still,” she said, her voice trailing off as she thought. “I hated it. The waiting. The wondering…”

“Aye, me too.” He took a deep breath and turned his hand, reaching for her hand. “I’ve been thinking about that actually. About how many others are like us? People whose Soulmarks are on the other side of the world. Do they find each other? What happens to them?”

She blinked at him. “That sounds like a nightmare. Like a—”

“Piece missing,” he finished.

Belle snorted and ducked her head, giggling. “That sounds so cliché doesn’t it? But it feels like that. Like we’re whole now.” She pressed a hand to her chest, curling it into a loose fist just over her heart. “Right here. Like I can breathe.”

He breathed in deeply, filling his lungs up for what seemed like the first time. He found her scent easily even over the aroma of fresh made waffle cones and the sugary sweetness of the ice cream. Roses and Belle and _love_.

“Whole,” he agreed. “It’s the most beautiful feeling in the world.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thestraggletag said:
> 
> Hope Remix: The issue of college comes up. It brings forth many problems: where she wants to go, how their living arrangements are gonna be and who’s gonna pay for it. Belle has always assumed her options were limited because of money but Gold is insisting he is the one that must pay. This causes trouble with Belle and Maurice. Sluggy, I can’t stop. This is a real problem. Help me

“So, Mark, what are your plans,” Colette asked after they walked back to their house (hand in hand despite her parents). He was invited into their apartment to discuss Things. The vagueness of the offer implied that they were going to dictate those Things and forbid any deviance from them.

He was irritated of course. It had been well over a decade and a half since he’d been answerable to anyone and now here were two people silently judging him before he got a word out. He’d never really had parents to speak of. He’d never known his mother and his father was best left unthought of. The only family he’d had, two aunts who raised him as best they could, had died long ago. This whole having a family thing was foreign to him and he didn’t know how to handle it. He only wanted to talk to Belle, find out what she wanted to do and what she dreamed of for their future if there was to be one, but, he had to concede that they were her parents and they had a right to know a little about him. 

“I’m not sure, really. It’s up to Belle,” he said. He was sitting next to Belle, his hand firmly clasped in hers, the lengths of their thighs pressed together. It was ridiculous. He knew they were being positively juvenile, but he relished the contact with Belle. She was sweeter than he’d imagined. Beautiful and funny and filled with an enthusiasm that had left him long ago. Gold longed to get to know her, to find out what she thought about, what her dreams and aspirations were, what she liked and what she felt. It was overwhelming finding her at last.

Maurice practically growled at him. “What did you do before you showed up here?”

“Well, I, uh, I had a law practice in Scotland, but I… I had to be here.”

Colette’s smile was reassuring and Maurice’s shoulders had loosened up significantly once he heard the magic word “lawyer.”

People had two reactions when they heard what he did for a living. They either got defensive because at one point they had found themselves on the wrong side of a lawsuit before. Or he was asked for free advice.

Maurice, to his credit did neither. “A lawyer, eh?,” the man said, leaning back into the soft pillows of the lounge. “That’s good. Good.”

“A solicitor, yes.” Gold glanced at Belle out of the corner of his eyes. She was staring at him in adoration. It took him a couple of blinks to realize that’s what that was. It had never happened to him before. No one looked at him like that. No one. He found it hard to meet her gaze. His chest was beginning to feel tight and it was getting hard to breathe, what with the staring and the… look in her eyes.

“So you’re not freeloading?” Maurice asked somewhere in the distance.

Belle was now beet red and making a face at her dad. A cut-it-out-before-I-kill-you-face. It was entirely captivating. He turned back to Maurice, with a bit of a smile. “I have no plans on freeloading.” He stopped himself from adding a “Sir.”

Belle abruptly stood up and Gold did too, not knowing what she was planning, but intending to follow through whatever it was. She grabbed his hand and yanked at him, pulling him after her. “We’re going to talk in my room again — in _private_ , by ourselves now and if I catch you listening in I will…” she lifted her chin, her face scrunched up as she thought of the dire threat. “I will be very cross,” she finished with a tiny stamp of her tiny foot.

Maurice rolled his eyes and waved them off, clearly feeling better about everything now that he learned that he wasn’t going to be financially responsible for Gold.

Once again he found himself ensconced within her room and Gold found himself relaxing  against her again. At home. At peace.

“You’re smiling,” she said, laughing at him in a way that made him feel good.

That was it! He felt good. It took him a while to figure that feeling out, like how it took him a bit before he realized what her look meant earlier. That wonderful amazing look in her eyes that made butterflies take off in his belly and a warm fuzzy feeling wash over him. Two sensations that should have counteracted against each other, but when combined, it turned out it made him feel really, really… good.

Of course he was smiling.

Belle was so beautiful and earnest and simply amazing that he couldn’t help but smile. He’d smiled more in seven hours than he had in seven years.

“So, you said you were going to university,” he began.

“Mmm.”

“Have you, um, thought about Cambridge or Oxford or Harvard?” He’d just met her, but he had no doubt that she was utterly brilliant. She could do anything. He knew it in his gut.

Belle laughed, her sweet voice sending thrills down to his toes. “Yeah, that’s like asking for the moon,” she told him, nudging his shoulder with hers.

Gold scratched the back of an ear, nervously. “Uh, what if I told you that you could have your pick.”

She stopped laughing. “My _pick_?” she said, raising an eyebrow at him. “Of what?”

He shrugged as casually as he could. There was no good way to tell someone you were loaded. Not without sounding like a braggart. “Money isn’t a problem. Not unless you want it to be,” he added as an afterthought.

“Who would want money to be a problem?” she asked, completely and deliberately missing the point.

“No one.”

She was quiet. “You’re saying you’ll pay? For my school?”

He inhaled sharply. “Belle, after I got my first Mark, when I realized our, uh, age difference, I began to work towards your future. I dissolved my practice and bought some real estate. And I have some investments.” He had four three ring binders waiting at his rented flat filled with his earnings and investments and savings. Just in case she wanted to look through them. e.

“My future?” she repeated, dully.

“Well… I figured, you’d be young. Just starting out and, perhaps, not as… what’s the word—”

“Rich?” she asked, sharply.

“I just wanted to provide for you,” he whispered, hoarsely. “I didn’t want you to have to worry about where you’d go to school or how you’d live or feel like you needed to work five jobs just to pay rent. I saved everything. Invested what I didn’t need for my daily expenses…” He thought about the squalid flat he lived in up until he left it all for Australia. “You deserve a good life, a better life.”

“Well, now you sound like my dad.”

He winced, but kept quiet. He knew that’s what it would look like. Like he was keeping her, despite their Marks.

“Look, it’s no different from any other couple supporting each other. I just had a head start. You don’t have to go to a different university, but it’s nice knowing that you don’t have to…” His brain scrambled for anything. “Worry about your rent or food. You can devote your time solely to studying or… or you can travel. Or-or eat nothing but bananas — I don’t care. Whatever you want to do really. Buy more books. And some shelves,” he teased.

She stared up at him, searching him with those amazing eyes that were now swimming with unshed tears. “You had to worry a lot didn’t you? When you were starting out?”

“A bit, yeah.”

Understatement of the year that was.

“And you still thought to save money for me? For when we eventually met?”

He licked his lips wondering where she was going with this. “Well, yeah. Of course.”

She left out a huff of a laugh. “Of course,” she repeated, shaking her head. “That’s… that’s very, uh… “ Abruptly she changed tack. “You used to be a lawyer. What are you gonna do now?”

“Now I’ve found you.” He gave her a shy look at that, still unbelieving that it had finally happened. “And I have another idea that I’ve been thinking about for a while. It think it’s a good one.”

She tilted her head at him and urged him on. “What is that?”

He gave her a crooked smile. “How good are you at computers?”


End file.
